Berlin Solstice

Berlin Solstice is a love story in the grand tradition. It is also a deeply moving and disturbing exploration of the passions and perversions that ruled Germany from 1923 to 1945, told through the intersecting lives of a number of unforgettable Germans as they struggle through the moral minefield created by the Nazis' rise to power. Here is the enigmatic Count Wolfgang von Friedrich, whose loyalties are unknown even to his best friends; the glamorous cabaret singer, Carmel Kohl, whose beauty and talent attract the eye of Adolf Hitler; Kurt Schmidt, an embittered soldier's son who climbs from poverty to become a high-ranking Gestapo officer; llse Schultz, a Catholic peasant whose simpleminded idealism make her an unwitting handmaiden to the Third Reich's perverted schemes. Among these fictional characters walk the real architects of the Nazi nightmare - Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich, Josef Goebbels and the Fuhrer himself. Sylvia Fraser has created a novel of such sensuous and graphic intensity that many readers will feel that they not only have come to understand, but have actually witnessed firsthand, a page of history that previously seemed incomprehensible - Adolf Hitler's seduction of a nation.

"Fraser is more than an historical novelist; she is an epic singer for our time." - Montreal Gazette.

"A novel of operatic scope." - Maclean's.

"A bravura performance." - Ottawa Citizen.

"The compelling and courageous novel has moved me not only to tears but also beyond words. . . . This is a cry for humanity and for the worth of every human individual, an acknowledgment that evil exists and must be opposed both outwardly and inwardly. a statement that human courage and love also exist and must be honored. I rarely use the word 'brilliant.' I use it now, with respect, about this novel." - novelist Margaret Laurence

"I'd give my right arm to have written Berlin Solstice. . . . Sylvia Fraser has written a political Grimm's tale so contemporary and compelling it puts her alongside the best of today's fictionists. . . . Her canvas is large as the map of Europe itself. Removing wolfish incisors and forked tail, she has succeeded in making the madmen, perverts and murderers of the Third Reich credible. . .a superbly crafted novel as difficult to overpraise as to stop reading." - poet Irving Layton.

"Sylvia Fraser has had the guts and the inspired humility to take the true artist's route through the most mind-boggling events of our age. She has imagined a cross-section of representative characters and asked them the question which has plagued us all: How could it have happened? Berlin Solstice is. . .a remarkably moving and believable reconstruction," - novelist Adele Wiseman

"A tour de force by Fraser. It's both good fiction and good history."- Vancouver Province.